Meteorite Blast In Russia Was Picked Up Even At The Antarctic

Thursday, 28 February 2013 03:02
Pranav Sinha

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The meteorite blast in Russia was heard all around the world. You may have read about the meteorite blast at a zinc factory in Russia about ten days ago. You may have also seen the video captures of a blazing meteorite tail slamming into Chelyabinsk. But what you have not known so far is that the explosion was heard all around the world and this is not just a figure of speech.

The meteor block was a fifty-six foot rock and it weighed five hundred kilotons. The sound waves of the detonation of the blast were picked up even at Antarctica, some fifteen thousand kilometers away by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization. This is a unit station which detects nuclear explosions on or below the ground.

In over hundred years, the Chelyabinsk meteor has been the biggest space object to explode on the earth’s surface. It knocked down walls, blew the windows apart and injured over thousand people when it released as much energy as that of thirty Hiroshima atomic bombs combined.

The impact on the ground set off sound waves, though sub audible, between 1Hz and 20Hz. These waves can travel around the world and can be picked up by the network of forty five infrasound stations set up by CTBTO to regulate treaties against nuclear tests. There is no talk, however, of recent tests done by North Korea. It looks like these stations are there only to pick up the sound waves from the impact; there is practically nothing much they can do to enforce nuclear test bans. Wonder what the purpose is then of these stations. Perhaps, the sources from where the infrasound is picked up could be falling meteors, supersonic aircraft, Aurora Borealis movement at the poles, severe storms, nuclear and chemical explosions, avalanches, earthquakes and explosive volcanic eruptions.